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Comment by stupidsignup | Hacker News Reader

I am a hardcore sci-fi fan. Although I basically grew up in a library, the most fascinating part of it were the two or three racks nobody frequented than me: the racks were full of hardcore sci-fi like heinlein, asimov, pkdick, silverberg, leguin, pohl, you name them. In that sense, Sci-Fi is actually dying, because in the last 10 years, I hardly found something that even remotely compares with the great work of these guys except for the works of one author, Iain. M. Banks.

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And Neal Asher, or Charles Stross (although his great Laundry series is more geeky-thriller-and-urban-horror-with-some-scifi-elements).

And honestly, compared to Reynolds, Asher, Stross and Banks I find the old 'hard-core' SciFi by Dick and Heinlein rather... dull. Not entirely sure what it is, but the classics are less gripping to me.

But then: The gold age of SciFi is between 8 and 12 :)

"The gold age of SciFi is between 8 and 12"

Only someone who doesn't truly love Sci-fi can say that ... Also, if you are saying that Dick is dull (by the way, Dick is totally different from Heinlein), than you have no clue and your opinion does not count. :-)

If you like Banks you might consider checking out the other two members of the "Scottish Clique", Ken Macleod and Charles Stross. Both write some really good stuff.

Other new good hard SF writers might be Cory Doctorow, Michael Chabon, Rachel Swirsky, Sara Genge, Geoffrey Landis, Elizabeth Bear, Ted Chiang, Paolo Bacigalupi, Aliette de Bodard, Mary Robinette Kowal, Charlie Jane Anders, Felicity Shoulders, and Ian Tregillis. I haven't read them all, but they're all at least on my reading list for good hard SF due to recommendations from friends I trust.

And I'll second the Alistair Reynolds recommendation too.

Greg Egan should be on this list.

He's certainly good, I really loved Distress, but I guess I don't think of him as new. Which is sort of silly I guess, given that he's still putting out stuff. If we're including him might as well do Bruce Sterling as well. I'm rereading "Distraction" at the moment and it hold up pretty darn well - except for failures of understanding about the economics of software development.

Vernor Vinge

I love Vinge as much as the next guy, but he really hasn't done much in "the last 10 years." Well, except Rainbows End which was pretty good.

Thanks for the list, I will check it out. I think I read something by Reynolds, but it didn't stick. Will look at it again.

Although he's technically Finnish, Hannu Rajaniemi might also count as being part of that "Scottish clique", I suppose, since he's based in Edinburgh. I thought his "The Quantum Thief", which came out earlier this year in the UK, was a terrific sci-fi novel, especially when you consider that it's his first. The bloke's got a PhD in string theory so one assumes he knows his stuff, too.

How do you find Neal Stephenson? He's not exactly SF, but his stories do have a SF element to them.

It's not bad, but hardly hardcore sci-fi.

I found the Gap Cycle rather good http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gap_Cycle

and really quite enjoyed http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nights_Dawn_Trilogy

and found pretty much everything in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revelation_Space_universe to be as good as anything I've read by Heinlein, Clark et al.

Honestly, there's tons of good stuff out there, but it's just hard to separate it from the pulp. With the oldie goldies it's relatively easy because we have a few decades of people assessing those books.

You should check Alastair Reynolds, specifically the Revelation Space series.

Got to reply to myself here. I forgot to mention Joe Haldeman who still writes and is one of my forever SciFi heroes because of "The Forever War". And now I discovered that Ridley Scott (Bladerunner, Alien) is going to do "The Forever War" in 3D! So, yes, Sci-Fi is dying, but as long as true fans of the pure art like Ridley Scott are around, there is hope.

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